


Luminous

by musicforswimming



Category: Firefly, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-05-18
Updated: 2005-05-18
Packaged: 2017-12-21 21:23:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/905096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicforswimming/pseuds/musicforswimming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Luminous beings are we."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Luminous

**Author's Note:**

> Part of an intended "Five Things" series, but the other four things never happened. OH WELL.

Book likes the teacher. This is surprising to River, for the teacher's ways are heathen, and include no crosses. But Book says that they are the same thing, that they walk the same path but call it by different names. And he also says that the teacher is further on the path. River has postulated that the things he and the teacher understand are not in the brain, and so his understanding cannot be eaten by his hair.

He walks with a stick, and talks strangely. He is short and ugly. The teacher's speech patterns are unique, his biology even more so. He is not human, River knows this, but it does not matter as much as it would for any other being, because he is beyond that, and when she is around him, so is she.

The speech patterns don't bother her, anyway. Their communication is above speech, above language and syntax and direct objects. And it does not hurt, from him. The teacher's mind is not empty, not by half, but the things that it is filled with are quiet and cool.

They are luminous.

"Yes," he says, and gives a little chuckle. She is seated, and seated they are eye-to-eye. He does not frighten her, but he awes her. "Yes, youngling, luminous indeed. Learnt quickly you have, very quickly."

He does not frighten her at all. He is a good teacher, because she knows that he is powerful but he does not frighten her. He makes River laugh when he smiles at her, when his enormous ears lift with it, when his ancient eyes are lined with it.

"Angry, are you?" he asks, holding her hands in his. The fingers are different; there are fewer, and his skin is dry and smooth, like a lizard's or a snake's. They are green, not blue, they are green like life and swamps. He makes her grow, he does not freeze her. He touches things that blue hands cannot, and he sees with eyes that Simon will never have.

He already knows the answer, but River shakes her head anyway. There is no anger in her mind. Anger and fear, those are dark places, places to hide in. "They took away the hiding-places," she says. "Cut them out." She is always visible, and she is always naked.

There is still a smile in his eyes when he nods, although she feels the horror in him, too. "Have them you could not, anyway," he says. "Painful is the path, but alone you are not. Bound are we all, metal and flesh and stars, and you and I more so than others."

River understands, then. He has no hiding-places either. They were not cut away, he got rid of them, and now he will help her to smooth the edges.

She is always naked, but she is more and less so with the teacher. With the teacher, it does not matter, for there is no attack.

With the teacher, she is luminous.


End file.
